(Patricia Kennealy met Jim Morrison in January 1969
at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, the day after the
Doors had appeared at Madison Square Garden. A tall,
attractive redhead, Patricia was then the editor of
Jazz & Pop, an influential rock trade magazine. In
June 1970, Jim and Patricia were married in a Celtic
handfasting ceremony--an event that Oliver Stone later
depicted in his 1991 film, The Doors. After Jim's
death, Patricia wrote a memoir, Strange Days; she is
also a noted science fiction writer whose latest
novel, Blackmantle, was published to wide critical acclaim.

AL: What did you think of the Oliver Stone movie which
many people, ourselves included, admired.

PM: You mean the world's biggest music video? Jim
Morrison, the man I love, the man I married, is
nowhere in that film. What you see is a grotesque,
sodden, buffoonish caricature, who could never
have written the immortal songs he is supposedly
being immortalized for. But the worst sin Oliver
Stone committed is that you don't care that Jim
Morrison is dead at the end of the film.

AL: What was Jim's attitude toward the Doors? Did it
change over time?

PM: At first they were a group of struggling artists
all equally together. At the end they were four
wealthy superstars struggling with a personal
group dynamic that was anything but equal. I
think by the time Jim left for Paris, it had
become more an office relationship than a four
way friendship. Jim told me that he never felt
he had much in common with Robby or John,
and that they felt the same about him. When
Jim left LA in March 1971, he left the Doors
as well--whether they knew it or not, whether
they believed it or not.

AL: How would you characterize Jim's personality?

PM: He didn't handle pain well. But pain for Jim,
as for so many artists, was a source of creativity.
I think that he thought if he stopped hurting, he'd
stop creating...And he was hurtful to others because
he was afraid of being hurt himself. He found it
hard to accept love because he had never been given
very much of it, and did not think himself worthy of
love.

AL: Was Jim self-destructive?

PM: Jim Morrison was most definitely not into destroying
himself. That said, I must also say that since Jim
was an alcoholic and not always in self-command, his
instinct for creative adventuring, that edge-walking
side of him, often pushed him into the borderlands of
self-destructiveness--and sometimes right over.

AL: What was Jim's attitude his last days in Paris?

PM: I had eight or ten cards and letters from him in the
three months he spent there. Some were exalted and
joyous and others were veiled in despair. The last
letter he wrote me was mailed only a few days before
he died. He wrote of how tired he was and how much
he missed me. "My side is cold without you..." he
told me. The letter was to weep for, and I did,
and still do.

AL: Did Jim talk much about Pam?

PM: We hardly ever talked about Pamela Courson. She
had nothing to do with us. Jim kept his life
very compartmentalized. And yes, I absolutely
do believe she killed him, and nothing will
ever persuade me otherwise. Not premeditated,
perhaps--junkies don't think that far ahead--but
in an attempt to hook him along with her, or to
control him, or punish him for leaving her, as
she knew he was about to do.

AL: After twenty-six years, there is still the
Morrison legend.

PM: Jim Morrison was a beautiful soul who had a deep
sense of the absurd. To him, the thought of being
an icon was repellent. He was one of the great
iconoclasts of all time. I think he'd probably
just laugh about his icon status--and then set
everybody straight in that Southern gentleman way
I love him for.